The purpose of this study was to examine correlations between nurses' self-leadership and individual work role performance and correlations between self-leadership in nursing units and team members' work role performance.

Participants were 202 conveniently selected general nurses from 5 general hospitals in Korea. The study was carried out on 35 nursing units. Data were collected during February 2015 with self-report questionnaires.

For factors affecting individual work role performance, self-expectation, self-goal setting, constructive thought, clinical career in the present nursing unit and marital status accounted for 44.0% of proficiency, while self-expectation, self-goal setting, constructive thought, and marital status accounted for 42.3% of adaptivity. Self-expectation, self-goal setting, constructive thought, self-reward, clinical career in the present nursing unit and position accounted for 26.4% of proactivity. In terms of team members' work role performance, self-reward and self-expectation in nursing units explained 29.0% of team members' proficiency. Self-reward and self-expectation in nursing units explained 31.6% of team members' adaptivity, and self-reward in nursing units explained 16.8% of team members' proactivity.

The results confirm that nurses' self-leadership affects not only individual self-leadership but also team members' work role performance. Accordingly, to improve nurses' work role performance in nursing units of nursing organizations, improvement in nursing environment based on self-leadership education is necessary and nurses' tasks rearranged so they can appreciate work-autonomy and challenges of work.